OT...How long have you been on ebay?

[Tony Gordon]

Nov. 9, 2001

[Fred]

June 1999

Just curious - what's been the coolest "value" item picked up on fleabay?

[CTDean]

Originally Posted by Fred

June 1999

Just curious - what's been the coolest "value" item picked up on fleabay?

I picked up a very important quarter plate daguerreotype of a home in New England for less than $10 that was listed as a damaged tintype. I had no idea what I was buying at the time but did know outside dags of houses were $500+. I researched the dag with two New England Historical Societies, and both wanted to buy it. I told both I would list it in the Sotheby's photo auction. Sotheby's declined to list it as it didn't meet their $500 minimum value (at that time) so I sold it and it went to the place where it belonged for $5000 even though it was worth more. So many times, over the years the big guys have been clueless about value.

[Orioles1954]

Nov. 22 1997

[savedfrommyspokes]

Definitely late to the party, arrived on 7.17.01

[icurnmedic]

1999.
Same year I received my first computer.
Selling Griffey RC’s helped me get through college.

[MVSNYC]

Since January 1999.

I was at the Live Guernsey's Auction in NYC late 1998 when they auctioned all the major Big Mac & Sosa HR Balls from the '98 season that just finished (I was in the front row when McFarlane won the 70th HR ball...pretty exhilarating auction). Anyway, there was a small table in the corner promoting their website, so I picked up a press kit folder they were giving out (still have it)...it was eBay.

[timzcardz]

June 23, 1999.

Can’t even imagine how many thousands of dollars of purchases I’ve made over the last 23 years.

And not all cards!

[FrankWakefield]

To answer the question, 20 years, 7 months, two weeks; that's how long,


Had browsed without an account for a few month, a bit scared of the unknown... Finally had to get on because there was a Duster Mails caramel card about to end, it showed him with St. Louis, so I hastily joined, bid, won, and thought wow what have I done. that was June 7, 2001.

[JollyElm]

Just imagine, back in the days when everyone here started on eBay, seeing a Mickey Mantle card priced at $25 was "OUTRAGEOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Some things never change.

[warrior1978]

Feb 2000

[toppcat]

It will be 23 years last month. Those early days were great.

[sgbernard]

October 12, 1999: 23 years this October. I remember the first several years, you really could find absolute gems on there, often mislabeled or in the wrong category, etc. I had a bunch of alerts set up. Rare things would pop up, too, I got a lot of my T209-IIs off eBay in the early days. There are no bargain cards on eBay anymore!

[scgaynor]

August 1997.

My first sale was a Vlad Guerrero signed card for $41. My first purchase was an 1880's Baseball Tintype in case for about $150. I think it ended at like 7AM in the morning and had to get up early to bid. No sniping back then.

Does anybody remember that Ebay's servers were named after reptiles and if you got a slow server, you could reload the page and get a faster server named after a different reptile?

Photos of an item were the exception and not the norm. You had to find somebody to host the photo and then insert html code to allow people to view it.